Kate's Apron

[Joshua Rogan]

If it was the same guy who killed Stride, he may have picked it up in Dutfields Yard. I suspect the references to 'mud' in Dutfields Yard, was a euphemism for horsesh*t.
Where would you get mud from in a cobbled yard, in the East end. Some of these folk had never seen a blade of grass their entire life.

Intereting you should say that, I was reading about the road surfaces of victorian London only yesterday.

The gaps between the "cobbles" (more likely granite setts) were filled by sand, or gravel, or a dry cement grout. Combined with the surprising amount of stone worn away by traffic meant a lot of dust was created. Apparently in dry weather some roads had to be watered daily to keep it down. Which led to a lot of dirt.

And you're absolutely right about the contents of the "mud". Or 57% right, I should say - an analysis of the mud from the streets was found to be composed of: horse dung 57%; abraded stone 30%; and abraded iron 13%.

[Herlock Sholmes]

If it was the same guy who killed Stride, he may have picked it up in Dutfields Yard. I suspect the references to 'mud' in Dutfields Yard, was a euphemism for horsesh*t.
Where would you get mud from in a cobbled yard, in the East end. Some of these folk had never seen a blade of grass their entire life.

True enough. To be honest what triggered the thought was that famous photograph of the horse in Mitre Square.

[Wickerman]

Ok, I’ll throw one out there just for the sake if it. Can we be 100% that the faeces was Catherine’s? If he took the cloth away so that after leaving Mitre Square he could give himself a quick check and wipe when he neared a lamp then maybe as he was wiping some blood from his trousers he noticed that he must have knelt in something in Mitre Square. So he wiped off blood and s**t at the same time?

I await the onslaught.

If it was the same guy who killed Stride, he may have picked it up in Dutfields Yard. I suspect the references to 'mud' in Dutfields Yard, was a euphemism for horsesh*t.
Where would you get mud from in a cobbled yard, in the East end. Some of these folk had never seen a blade of grass their entire life.

[Wickerman]

That should read “Or if he didn’t…”

Ah, you have troubles with 'did' & 'didn't', too?
That's what happened to me a couple of weeks ago - with a 'Can' not 'can't', I thought it was my age....

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

Even if Montie & this relative were close, it doesn't follow that the relative would allow himself to become an accessory to murder.

Cheers, George

Oh yes, there's a lot of assumption involved. It's just the first step was to find the relative, which was done.
It's not necessary that any relative would be aware of what Montie had done, just coming in late in itself is not suspicious.

[Wickerman]

Do you think it’s a possibility Wick that he might have bought his own cloth but then, fearing that he might unwittingly have been about to drip blood through the streets he cut a piece of apron as second, precautionary layer of wrapping? Or if he did want blood seeping through his own cloth into an inside coat pocket?

There are a number of possibilities, you could be right on either point.
Him removing a piece of apron as he did suggests to me he didn't come prepared.
This may have been one of those nights when he didn't plan to kill anyone. Maybe things took a turn for the worse, things escalated, got out of hand. Something triggered his psychosis, that's all it takes. He can be normal one minute then something triggers his alter-ego.

In my case, I think the man Stride was with at the Bricklayers Arms was also the Smith suspect - and the killer. He didn't carry that proverbial black bag that night. He wasn't out to kill, and if it was the same guy who met Eddowes then cutting off that apron fits the pattern - unprepared.
Thats all just speculation though.

[Wickerman]

I can't remember which thread it was on, so I'm going to post it here and hope someone can suggest where it should go...

Apropos of how witnesses were summoned to the inquest, specifically who summoned them, the following excerpt from the Daily News coverage of Polly's inquest is interesting;

Daily News 3 Sept
"The coroner replied that he should like to hear on Monday the two butchers who had been referred to, as well as evidence as to the departure of the deceased from the situation at Wandsworth.

Inspector Abberline - The butchers have been summoned.

Inspector Helsby remarked that the deceased's departure from her situation at Wandsworth had to do with a case of larceny. The evidence for which the Coroner asked should be produced. A juryman - Can we have the husband?

Inspector Abberline - Yes, sir."

Hi Joshua.

You must have seen one of these - a Summons for a witness among the Coroners forms.



I think a summons was delivered by the police. Abberline is saying "it was done".

[Wickerman]

Typically? I hope you're not speaking from experience!

Oh wait, you are. I forgot you have a dark past....

Ha, sometimes my choice of words leaves something to be desired.
Nothing so dark, I was a butchers apprentice on leaving school.

[JeffHamm]

I thought I read that most of the blood was confined to one corner. Are you suggesting that there was so little blood on the cloth that it hadn't soaked through to the other side?

I would have thought that he would have wiped his hands and knife on her clothing in order to avoid carrying an incriminating piece of evidence. But if he had cut his own hand, he wouldn't have had that option, and he wouldn't have anticipated that eventuality and come prepared. On the other hand, being caught with freshly extracted organs would be pretty incriminating.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

In all versions of the inquest transcripts one corner is described as being wet, in the Newspaper (The Times) the corner is described as "wet with blood" but in the official transcript the "with blood" is not included. Trevor only considers the wording from the official transcript and does not consider anything in the newspaper versions of the transcripts as at all relevant. As such, Trevor has concluded that the inquest version tells us the corner was wet with urine because then that allows him to argue the apron piece was worn as a menstrual pad. And given it was urine, she couldn't have been wearing the apron.

My, and others, contention is that it seems likely to be more error prone to have the theory drive the evidence rather than the evidence drive the theory. As such, I suggest the corner being wet with urine is unsafe, and in fact, will be so bold as to suggest it is unfounded. I agree with Trevor's concern about the fact that "with blood" is not included in both versions, and that means it is either an error of omission in the official transcript (and one could point to the fact there is a lot of additional testimony recorded in the newspaper versions compared to the official version; i.e. the actual questions asked, and follow up discussions, and so forth) but it could also be an "error of insertion" by the journalist (adding their impression of what was intended rather than adding something actually stated). Both types of errors occur when writing down other people's speech, even by trained experts (which is why audio recording is used now, we have improved technology to help overcome such errors).

However, I would suggest that one could argue the corner was wet with blood, it being recorded in some versions of the transcripts, but if one wishes to be more concervative, one could argue it was wet, but with what we cannot be sure. Given there had been rain that night, for example, the corner could simply have been wet with water, either from the crime scene, or while in G.S. (though I don't think there are reports of rain after the murder, there could easily have been a puddle where the G.S. piece was dropped, which was soaked up by the corner of the apron). Those are, from what we know, the two most plausible sources of "wet". I argue that to go further, and speculate it was urine, would require physical evidence or testimony to support it not simply mental gymnastics.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Ok, I’ll throw one out there just for the sake if it. Can we be 100% that the faeces was Catherine’s? If he took the cloth away so that after leaving Mitre Square he could give himself a quick check and wipe when he neared a lamp then maybe as he was wiping some blood from his trousers he noticed that he must have knelt in something in Mitre Square. So he wiped off blood and s**t at the same time?

I await the onslaught.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Do you think it’s a possibility Wick that he might have bought his own cloth but then, fearing that he might unwittingly have been about to drip blood through the streets he cut a piece of apron as second, precautionary layer of wrapping? Or if he did want blood seeping through his own cloth into an inside coat pocket?

That should read “Or if he didn’t…”

[JeffHamm]

In butchering, a righthanded person tends to let his left hand do the dirty work.
It's just so common (or it was common), that when a butcher has a bloody left hand, he scoops his apron up (hand behind his apron) with his clean right hand and wipes his dirty left hand with the outside of the apron.
Clean right hand inside - dirty left hand outside. It just becomes a form of habit. You don't want blood on the inside next to your clothes.
It might be difficult to imagine just reading the action put into words - maybe I should make a video?

Makes perfect sense to me. Even just picking up a tea towel by grabbing it in the middle will end up with just one side out, so you may only touch one side.

- Jeff

[GBinOz]

Not quite.
It has already been shown that one of Druitt's cousins(?), a close relative of some sort, lived in Bethnal Green, or that general area. The actual address is given in one of the Druitt books.
This 'direction of flight' issue has already been tested with the Druitt theory, the author was trying to show if it could be determined Montie & this relative were close, which he wasn't able to do.
However, the bottom line is, a Druitt family member lived in that direction, not too far from Whitechapel.

Hi Jon,

Even if Montie & this relative were close, it doesn't follow that the relative would allow himself to become an accessory to murder.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Typically? I hope you're not speaking from experience!

Oh wait, you are. I forgot you have a dark past....

I still don’t know how he escaped the fire in that big wooden man Joshua?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I remember you posting pictures to show the extent of blood staining on a piece of cloth after an organ was removed from a body?
Or something of that nature.
I think you argued the amount of blood was more than what was described on the pieces of apron?

My questions at the time remain the same.
- Working class apron's of the period were typically made of calico, it's a course tightly woven material that doesn't let blood through easily. Did you use calico for your cloth?
- We cannot know if the killer removed the organs before he sliced off a piece of apron. If this was the case he could have put them down on the wet ground momentarily while finding something to wrap them in (ie; cutting off a piece of apron?). They (especially the uterus) would drain of most of the blood onto the ground before he had time to wrap them.
Did you allow for this possibility?

If I recall, you said you didn't use calico, and you didn't put them down on a wet surface for 30? seconds.
So how can you argue that you replicated all eventualities?

Do you think it’s a possibility Wick that he might have bought his own cloth but then, fearing that he might unwittingly have been about to drip blood through the streets he cut a piece of apron as second, precautionary layer of wrapping? Or if he did want blood seeping through his own cloth into an inside coat pocket?